


Quo Vadis

by la_topolina



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Family, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Multi, Next-Gen, Parenthood, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:22:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24652249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_topolina/pseuds/la_topolina
Summary: With parents, siblings, and children in tow, the Weasley clan sets off for adventure. How will Percy ever be able to maintain his sanity?
Relationships: Angelina Johnson/George Weasley, Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley, Audrey Weasley/Percy Weasley, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15





	1. Nature Calls

“I have to go potty!” Roxanne shouted. She was crammed in the middle of the center seat of the olive green van as it rolled jauntily along the muggle highway. Although the Weasley clan had left the Blue Line port-key more than three hours ago, they were only thirty miles away from Chicago, much to Percy’s displeasure.

“What do you mean you have to go to the loo?” Angelina sighed. “We just stopped ten minutes ago! Why didn’t you go then?”

“I didn’t have to go then,” Roxanne protested. “But I have to go _now_!”

“You’ll just have to hold it,” Angelina huffed back, although it was clear that this was an empty threat.

“Can’t hold it!”

“Just go in your seat,” George suggested, grinning. “We can vanish it afterwards.”

“Eewww! Daddy!!” Roxanne cried.

“George!” Angelina admonished. “That’s disgusting.”

Fred leaned over the seat and bopped Roxanne on the head. “Do it!” he encouraged. Like his namesake, Fred was always glad to back up his father’s mischief. 

Before the madness could continue any further, Percy interrupted, “Dad, there’s a petrol station at this exit. Could you please stop before Roxanne has an accident?” 

“I don’t know, Percy,” Arthur said, laughing. “I think that George might be onto something. We’ll never get to New Glarus if we stop every ten miles for some child to use the loo.”

“Dad!”

“I have to go, too!” James cried. “I don’t wanna go in the back seat.”

“Arthur, please,” said Molly sharply from her spot next to James. “This isn’t the thirteenth century. Wizards _do_ use the bathroom.”

“Oh, fine,” Arthur agreed, smoothly steering the car over to the exit and up the ramp to the Love’s Travel Stop and Country Store waiting ominously at the top of the hill. 

Percy let out an irritated sigh. It would take half an hour to get everyone in and out of this place, even if only the children who actually needed to use the loo went in.

“I think Lily wants to nurse anyway,” Ginny was saying to Harry.

“Then there’s time to look around,” Arthur said gleefully as he parked. “Everybody out! I love truck stops!”

Wonderful. Make that an hour. If they were lucky.

They received more than one curious stare as the eighteen of them tumbled out of the van. It was larger than the car that Arthur used to extend to drive them all to King’s Cross, but even this vehicle had to be enchanted to fit everyone comfortably. George had brought it over from England in his bag and, once they had descended from the loud, dirty elevated train station to the noisy, dirty Chicago street, he’d discreetly pulled it out and blown it up to proper size while the rest of the party had attempted to appear oblivious. Actually, the size of their group had probably helped distract the muggles on the street from the fact that a strange man had just pulled a van out of his bag. The children had been running up and down the sidewalk, running into hungry people on their way to lunch, and generally getting in the way. Angelina, Ginny, Audrey, and Molly the elder had done their best to keep the children from winding up in the street and being crushed by an oncoming car or bicycle. Percy had simply tried to pretend he was not a part of the melee. 

The horrifically bright lights of the travel stop assaulted Percy’s eyes as they went in. The ladies made a beeline for the loo with all of the children while Harry, Ron and George moseyed over to the McDonald’s and started ordering sandwiches and chips. Merlin, how could they be hungry? Percy wandered away from them, glad to be free of the nonstop chattering. The store couldn’t exactly be called quiet, as some muggle music was blaring from the speakers above the rows of strange muggle merchandise, but at least no one was demanding his attention at the moment. 

Not for the first time, Percy wondered why on earth he had agreed to go on this trip in the first place. Arthur had been talking about the idea of a road trip in the muggle style on and off for years, ever since he’d seen some muggle film on the subject. Why the trip had to take place in America when there were perfectly fine roads in England, Percy also did not understand but, once Ron and George had seized on the idea, it slowly became inevitable. Bill and Fleur were visiting her family in France—something that had been planned for a year, or so Fleur insisted. Charlie had been trapped at the dragon sanctuary, and Hermione had been unable to break away from her emergency sessions at the Ministry. The moment he had put a foot inside the enchanted van, Percy had regretted not claiming a work excuse as well. Honestly, a road trip with nine children, seven of whom were under the age of six? What had he been thinking?

“Percy, look at this!” Arthur said, grabbing Percy’s arm and dragging him up one of the narrow aisles stuffed with garish plastic objects. “It’s a knight’s helmet!” Arthur proudly held up a laughable imitation of a quasi-medieval helmet. “Don’t you think the kids would love them?”

“I don’t think we need anything else to cram into the van,” Percy muttered. “Even with the extending charm.”

“Oh, tosh. There’s plenty of room. Although I guess we should save some room for the shop at House on the Rock. Have I mentioned that the muggle, Alex Jordan, designed the whole thing himself?”

“You have, several times.”

Arthur clapped Percy on the back. “Why don’t you go get a sandwich, Percy. You look a little peakèd.”

Percy was about to argue, but he thought better of it. It would be preferable to sit and wait with his brothers than it would be to wander around gaping at muggle junk for the next hour. There would be plenty of time to do that when they reached their destination. 

Two hours, three rounds of trips to the loo, eleven ice cream cones (James, Fred, and Lucy all dropped theirs and had to be given replacements), one hundred dollars in American muggle money, and one singing fish later, the Weasleys and the Potters finally piled back into the van. Harry, Percy, and the mothers busied themselves fastening most of the children into their various five-point harness car seats. Thanks to some clever wand waving, this took less time than it would take to do the muggle way, but it was still long enough for Ron and George to begin muttering loudly against the wisdom of using the devices. They saw no point and refused to wear their own seat belts, insisting that if there were an accident they could cast a cushioning charm and they would be just fine, thank you. As if on cue, James and Albus began complaining that the straps of their car seats were ‘too tight.’ Percy and the other, more responsible adults, ignored all of the protests. After all, one could only cast so quickly! Couldn’t be too careful.

By the time the children were secured, Arthur had strapped the singing fish to the back of the driver’s seat. James and Roxanne started giggling madly as they waved their hands back and forth in front of the obnoxious thing, which kept it wiggling and ‘singing’ without cease. Percy resumed his seat next to Arthur in the front of the van, once again grateful that his mother had volunteered to sit in the back with Ginny, Audrey, Angelina, and the children. George started flicking his wand at the fish, warping its song and its recorded voice into strange approximations of music. A headache started creeping its way from the base of Percy’s skull, and he was sure that soon it would engulf his entire brain. He leaned his sore head against the window and tried to ignore the muggle sandwich that was sitting like a lump of lead in his stomach.

“ _I’m a little tea pot…_ ” the fish sang.

“More!” shouted Albus, and George was only too happy to keep the fish singing.

Merlin, why couldn’t everyone converse at a normal volume instead of screaming at the top of their lungs as though they were at a Quidditch match? Even his usually quiet daughter, Molly, was shouting with laughter at whatever game she and Fred were playing in the back. Percy stared glumly out the window, watching the trees and the enormous signs advertising muggle lawyers and various cheese products flash by. He was just drifting mercifully off to sleep when Arthur began loudly rhapsodizing about the wonders of the muggle petrol station.

“Did you see the showers in the loo?” Arthur said excitedly. “They’re really for the muggles that make a living driving giant trucks back and forth across the country! They can sleep in the trucks too. Doesn’t that sound like a marvelous way to live?”

“It sounds dirty and wretched,” Percy muttered, but Arthur didn’t seem to hear him.

“And the racks of postcards! You can get anything on a postcard. Ron and George should add a line of them to their shop—moving and singing postcards! And there were little packets that you could crack and they would warm up to keep your hands and feet comfortable in the cold! I’m constantly amazed by the ingenuity of muggles. Why, back when I was in…”

With great effort, Percy closed his eyes and tuned out his father’s voice as the man launched into a long tale illustrating ‘muggle ingenuity.’ He was beginning to enjoy a lucid dream involving himself and a silent, empty house, when his nap was cut short by Lucy’s piercing voice.

“James is touching me!” she shouted. “James is _touching_ me!”

“Am not!” James shot back.

“James, leave your cousin alone,” Harry chided absently before delving back into the deep Quidditch debate that was raging between himself, Ron, and Ginny.

“He’s touching me! He’s still touching me!” Lucy shrieked.

“Am not!” James protested.

“James and Lucy!” Percy snapped. “Leave each other alone. We’ve got another ninety minutes before we get to New Glarus, and then you won’t be sitting next to each other any more.”

“Let’s play a game,” George said suddenly. “I spy with my little eye something that is red.”

“Is it Grandpa’s hair?” Molly the younger asked. 

“Yes!” George replied with a grin. “Your turn.”

“I spy with my little eye something that is blue.”

“Is it Lucy’s eyes?” George asked.

“Noooo.”

“Is it in the car?” Arthur asked.

“Nooooo.”

“Is it a car?” Fred asked.

“Nooooo.”

“Is it the sky?” Roxanne blurted.

“Yes!”

“Daddy, James is _looking_ at me!” Lucy shouted.

“Am not! I’m looking at the seat _next_ to you!” James shouted back.

“Daddy!”

“Lucy,” Percy said wearily. “Just play the game and leave your cousin alone.”

“Don’t wanna!”

“We could sing,” George suggested wickedly. “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer…”

The older children, and the fish, joined in with George and the car was filled with their off-key singing. After about five minutes, Percy felt as though his head were going to explode. He glanced at the clock. Seventy-five more minutes until New Glarus. There was no way he would make it without murdering someone. He briefly considered petrifying everyone in the car save himself, but then he would have to drive and he’d never been very good at that. Something about the way the other cars all hurtled along next to you or towards you unnerved him to the point that it was impossible to concentrate. He put his hands over his ears and rested his head against the window again, trying to ignore the way his stomach was flipping.

“Sixty-six bottles of beer on the wall…”

“Mommy?” Lucy’s little voice was almost lost in the ‘singing.’

“Yes, dear?” Audrey asked.

“I have to go to the loo.”

It was well after dark by the time the weary travelers reached the Chalet Landhaus Inn, and Percy was not the only adult at the end of his patience. George and Molly the elder were holding up the best, but it could not be denied that there was a certain strain in the smiles of everyone else. Even Arthur’s constant good-will seemed to be worn, but then, driving for hours with all of the noise and the unending pit stops would eventually grate on anyone’s nerves. The man barely had the energy to exclaim over the charming Swiss flags and candlelit chandelier in the lobby. The muggle clerk gave the group of exhausted adults and excited children a sympathetic smile, although she seemed confused as to how all eighteen people were going to fit into two rooms. George was alert enough to cast a subtle _Confundus_ before the clerk could call her manager, and soon they were all tromping their way up the stairs to rest and relaxation.

Molly the elder and Angelina managed to get into the first room before the children and, with a few wand flicks, the small space was enlarged and the one bed was transfigured into enough beds for three of the families to share. As they moved on to the adjoining room, the children swarmed in and, as a mass, threw themselves onto the beds and began jumping madly. Even little Hugo toddled over to one of the new-made beds, and he started wailing loudly when he was unable to pull himself up onto one. George gamely gave his nephew a boost onto the bed so that he could join the mehaym, and Lily laughed and clapped from her place in Ginny’s arms.

Percy had had enough. He felt his face growing hot as he watched the madhouse that the hotel room had become. He’d stupidly imagined that he would finally have a moment of peace, and this was more than he could stand. 

“Stop it!’ he bellowed. “You’ll all break your necks! What is wrong with you?!”

The children froze and George and Ron stifled a laugh but, before Percy could continue his tirade, Audrey’s gentle face caught his attention.

“Dear, would you and Harry mind going down to the restaurant and ordering a little dinner for everyone? Maybe you could try out the beer while you’re there. Arthur says that New Glarus has its own brewery.”

Percy forced himself to take a deep breath. “Fine,” he muttered. 

“Take your time, love,” Audrey added.

“Oh, I will.”


	2. The House of Dreams

“Has anyone seen Hugo?” Ron asked for the hundredth time that morning. 

It had taken them far too long to exit the inn, what with innumerable trips back and forth for childcare paraphernalia, lost shoes, lost teddy bears, and lost children. Percy had been tempted to get lost himself, but he didn’t want to leave Audrey alone with his family. She was very patient, but even she had her limits. 

“He’s over there, in the fireplace!” laughed Fred, pointing at his cousin.

“Da-da!” Hugo gurgled, poking his head out from behind one of the enormous cauldrons that sat in the fireplace that took up an entire wall. “Min-try.”

“I don’t think this one is connected to the Floo Network,” Ron said, scooping up his son.

Hugo’s lower lip started trembling. “Want Mummy! Don’ want you!”

“'Course you do!” Ron said, “But you’re a hat, hats don’t want their Mums.” So saying, he set Hugo on top of his head and tickled him until the child started laughing so much that he forgot to cry. 

Crisis averted, Percy turned his attention to counting all of the children as they shuffled from oddly shaped room to oddly shaped room like a herd of slow moving, disobedient cats. Seven, eight, nine. Good, they were all here. The last thing he wanted was to leave someone behind. Except for George and Ron. They were getting on Percy’s last nerve. And his father. They could leave the three of them behind. Percy had been unable to sleep well the night before—surprise—what with the strange room and the strange noises, and being first too hot and then too cold, and all of the children who refused to go to sleep until George sang _Ninety-nine bottles of Beer on the Wall_ three times through. By the end of the second round, even George’s temper had been sagging, but George had then slept the sleep of the innocent and had bounced into the new day of sight-seeing invigorated.

“And Alex Jordon designed all of this himself. He built a lot of it himself too—no magic. For the first two decades he hauled the rock up by hand—not even electricity!” Arthur was babbling excitedly. He’d memorized most of the information in the guide book and was going on to anyone who would listen. Molly the elder was too busy keeping children from pulling down the expensive looking colored glass lamps to do more than nod distractedly at her husband’s lecture. Percy did pause a moment to briefly admire the lovely glass, and he did note that the way the rooms were stacked onto each other reminded him of the Burrow. Alex Jordon must have been Arthur’s soul mate in another life.

“Look at the music thing!” Roxanne cried, pointing.

Unfortunately, before anyone could look, little Hugo smacked his head on the low doorway. Ron had shifted the child onto his shoulders, and he’d neglected to duck low enough to get both of them through the door. Hugo pitched backwards and only the fact that Ron was holding onto his son’s feet kept the child from falling to the floor. Hugo’s little forehead bled freely, and his wails echoed through the gatehouse.

“Oh, poor thing!” Audrey chirped, rushing to take Hugo off of Ron’s shoulders.

“Oi, you alright there chap?” Ron asked worriedly. 

Audrey and Ron were able to shield Hugo from the curious eyes of the other Muggle tourists long enough to cast _Episkey_ on him. Once his nose was cleaned and back in place, his cries subsided to whimpers for a moment, but then they crescendoed back to screams. 

“Maybe we should take him outside for a bit until he calms down,” Audrey suggested. “Percy, you can help manage the other children, yes?”

It wasn’t as though he were being given a choice. “Of course,” he said. 

Ron carried the still screaming Hugo out of the House with Audrey murmuring comforting nothings beside him. The ratio of children to adults increased, and the children seemed to sense the opportunity to begin darting in even more directions than they had before. There were only thirteen rooms in the beginning part of this ungodly house but, at the rate they were going, they were sure to only see half of them today. Never mind the rest of the house. Percy’s patience was rapidly evaporating. Who was he kidding—his patience was gone. 

He caught up with James just as the child was attempting to climb up an expensive looking carved table and grabbed the boy by the back of the shirt, hauling him backwards roughly.

“Ow!” James complained. “Uncle Percy, I was just having fun.”

Percy ignored him and carried the boy back to the others who were congregating in front of a garish display of musical instruments. The monstrosity began a loud rendition of some obnoxious sounding song just as Percy reached it, and he snorted in irritation.

James, however, seemed enchanted. 

“Woooow!” the boy cried, ceasing his struggles.

Eventually Percy thought it safe to set down James. The other children and most of the adults were watching the music machine with varying expressions of amazement and amusement. When the thing finished its song, Percy started to herd the group along, but the children protested and they stayed through another rendition of the same tired tune. After the fourth such repeat, Percy was tapping his foot and swearing to himself. 

“And just think,” Arthur said to Lucy, “There are at least forty more of these throughout the house.”

“Really?” Lucy asked, wide-eyed.

“Bother it.” Percy muttered under his breath.

At long last, the group made its meandering way out of the room and into the next, but its progress was so unbearably slow, that Percy had given up all hope of ever reaching the end of the house. Why had he agreed to come on this trip? Why had he let Audrey talk him into it? At least he had learned his lesson. He would never give into fits of sentiment again. Vacations would be taken with his own family, meaning his wife and his daughters, thank you very much.

He was deep in this black cloud when they finally emerged from the dark, irregularly shaped rooms of the gatehouse.

“I’ve got so many ideas for when we get home, Molly,” Arthur was saying.

“I loved the lamps and the windows, dear. Do you think you could make a few of those for the downstairs parlor?” Molly the elder was asking.

Merlin! Of course his father would take decorating advice from a mad American muggle. 

“Daddy,” Molly the younger said suddenly, tugging on Percy’s sleeve. 

“What?” he snapped, jerking his arm away. He was angry to have his rumination interrupted, and he hated having his sleeve tugged. “What now?”

“Look!” 

He sighed and turned his eyes to the brightly lit, airy room in front of them. It was mostly windows, even the floor in parts, and it extended so far that it seemed to go on forever. The windows gave a view to the forest floor and James and Rose had run forward in order to gape down into the abyss.

“It goes on forever,” Molly the younger breathed, greatly impressed. “It must be magic.”

“It’s just an illusion, Molly,” Percy said impatiently. “The muggles built the room so that it creates an optical illusion.”

“Oh,” Molly said quietly. “I thought it was magic.”

Percy glanced down at his daughter and saw that her lower lip was trembling and she was wiping her eyes. He was a git. He knew that Molly loved to share things with him and, usually, he was delighted to hear whatever she had to say. And he’d crushed her interest without a thought because he was impatient. Because he’d rather be somewhere else. Because he couldn’t just relax and go with the flow the way everyone else in his family seemed to be able to. He always had to be doing something, and reaching the next goal, the next milestone—otherwise he was wasting his time. 

He glanced from his sniffling daughter to the rest of his family. They were all oohing and ahhing over the room that seemed to go to infinity, and Percy had to admit that it was cleverly constructed. He wondered what would happen if he approached the end of the room. How far would he be able to go before the illusion stopped working?

When Percy had been a young man, before the war, he had thought that his life would go on forever, the way this room appeared to. But that had, of course, been a young man’s illusion. And that illusion had encouraged him to break with his family. He had always intended to reconcile with them, once he’d been able to get them to see reason. Or, at the very least, once he had established his independence sufficiently. And, eventually, he had had to swallow his pride and admit he’d made a mistake, and come back round to the way his family saw things. But he hadn’t been able to do that in time to make things truly right between himself and his late brother Fred. He’d missed out on so much time with Fred and the rest of his family because he had foolishly believed in the illusion that he—and they—would live forever. Hadn’t he learned his lesson?

He was on vacation. There was no goal here. What else was he supposed to be doing besides observing new sights and enjoying the company of his family? His throat tightened as he realized how much Fred would have loved this place. They really had no idea how much time they all had to be together. He didn't care to waste any of it.

He knelt down next to Molly the younger and pulled her into his harms to hug her tightly. “It might not be magic, but it is very clever,” he said. “Let’s go in and look at it more closely.

A bright smile broke across her face and her tears ceased. “Okay, Daddy.”

Once Percy gave into the madness of it, he had to admit that the house was something spectacular. The streets that reminded one of Hogsmeade, the larger-than-life-size battle between a whale and a giant octopus, the vast collection of dolls and dolls’ houses, the plethora of pipe organs, the carousel room. It went on and on until his head was spinning with the overabundance of it all. But, somehow, it worked. Somehow the madness of it created this wonderful never-land place and, at the end of the day, Percy was rather sorry to leave it.

They were all exhausted when they trudged out to the van and started back to New Glarus. That was their excuse, in any case, when they realized about ten minutes down the road that they had left Ron, Hugo, and Audrey at the House. Amid many exclamations, Arthur swung the van around and headed back to collect the wayward trio. Percy was somewhat worried that Audrey would be at her wit’s end by the time they reached them, but the three were found safe and sound, waiting by one of the giant strawberry pots and chattering amicably with a groundskeeper.

“It really is something else, isn’t it?” Ron said when they were all safely in the van, this time after a thorough head count.

“It sure was. I’ve got so many ideas!” George said gleefully.

“I wish we could go back tomorrow,” Molly the younger said dreamily.

“You know,” Percy said slowly, glancing around the van. “I don’t see why we couldn’t.”


	3. The Mother Road

The geometrical skyline of Chicago glittered ahead of them in the dark. The children all slept soundly, along with Ron, Harry, Ginny, and Angelina. George was talking quietly, but animatedly, about some of the ideas the House had given him for new product lines, and Audrey and Molly the elder were listening patiently. Percy was watching the lights flash by, his arm resting on the open window. The delicious smell of the summer night wafted in, and Percy could not keep himself from smiling. 

“Still sorry you came along?” Arthur teased gently.

“Oh, don’t rub it in Dad. You know it was a great time. Especially when George and I animated the whale and the giant octopus.”

Arthur chuckled. “Yes, that was something special.”

Percy was silent for a few moments, replaying the the afternoon. They had spontaneously stopped at a Norwegian Stave Church before heading back to Chicago, and the colorfully carved wood was something that Percy wanted to think about for a long time.

“You know, I’m sorry this is ending,” Percy said.

A mischievous smile spread across Arthur’s face, and it was clear that he was Fred and George’s father.

“Have you ever heard of Route sixty-six?” Arthur asked slyly.

“No.” Percy knew that he should be getting worried but, instead, a wild recklessness was building in his gut. It must be the summer air, addling his brain. “What’s that?”

“It’s the Mother Road in America. We could drive into the city to find the start of it, and then we could follow it all the way to the Pacific Ocean.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes.” Arthur’s eyes were sparkling with mirth and he glanced briefly at Percy. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know. Shouldn’t we be heading back home?”

“Eh, your mother and I have nowhere to be. Ron and George work for themselves. Harry was talking about all these vacation days that he has saved. And I know you have some more left as well.”

“What about Hermione? Won’t she be worried?”

“Ron can contact her in the morning and we can meet her in St. Louis. There’s a port-key in the City Museum.”

“I don’t know…”

“It’ll be fun.”

Percy glanced back at the sleeping passengers and saw from the look on George’s face that his brother had heard every world their father had said.

“Come on, Percy. Let’s have an adventure,” George said, an excited gleam in his eyes. For a moment, he looked as young as he had been when he and Fred had been causing trouble all over Hogwarts.

“Well. All right,” Percy agreed slowly. “Adventure it is.”


End file.
